STEL HOPING

With their last game against Chelsea in a fortnight, it is a question of whether Megson's men can mug a Sunderland side now safe.

Megson said: "It will be like a Cup Final for us. With 25,000 of our fans screaming us on I think we can do it.

"It's become very complicated although I don't think it will help us that Sunderland are now safe."

Pitiful

It was a pitiful first half as Spurs went through the motions.

They were easily able to dominate the possession but created precious little. Bolton created nothing.

Megson responded to the situation at half-time by replacing dire striker Gregorz Rasiak with El-Hadji Diouff and in a flash of positive thinking replaced anchor midfielder Ivan Campo with Stelios.

It took just 24 seconds for the switch to pay off. Spurs surrendered possession cheaply in their own half and for once Bolton pieced together a decent move.

It culminated in Diouf laying the ball off to the over-lapping Gretar Steinsson on the right flank.

He sent over a teasing cross which confused Spurs centre-half Michael Dawson and keeper Radek Cerny. Stelios nipped in and at the second bite scrambled the ball over the line.

Having won his last two games 1-0, Megson immediately changed to 4-5-1 with Diouf dropping deep on the right.

The aim was to cling on to what they had, but it proved a mistake.

Spurs did not even have to step up a gear to resume control as Bolton invited them on. They were level within six minutes.

A Keane shot on the turn took a deflection and rolled straight into the path of Steed Malbranque, who had the simple task of drilling the ball past Ali Al-Habsi at the near post.

Juande Ramos was even able to play Tom Huddlestone as a libero after taking off Dawson until the last few minutes when belatedly Megson asked Diouf to go back alongside Stelios up front.

On the few occasions Bolton had chances to penetrate they lacked the bodies or commitment in the final third.

And by the end they were counting their blessings as Spurs missed a string of chances, even though they were not trying too hard.

As Ramos said: "We are trying to remain professional until the end of the season and we created enough chances to have won comfortably."

Bolton were thankful that Al-Habsi produced another impressive display. Two saves from Dimitar Berbatov were outstanding.

In the 74th minute Al-Habsi was grateful that Darren Bent lobbed softly into his arms after running on to a long clearance.

And in the final minute Danny Guthrie headed a Bent header off the line.

Whizzkid

Then deep in stoppage time an unmarked Berbatov lazily headed Joe O'Hara's free-kick over the bar when he should have buried it.

Tottenham did their best work before the kick-off when they beat Newcastle in the race to sign Croatia's whizzkid Luca Modric.

Given that 22-year-old Modric has also attracted the interest of Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City, the £15.8million signing is an impressive statement of intent by Spurs.

Mind you, the most important piece of business for Spurs this summer will be keeping Berbatov. Apparently Real Madrid and Barcelona are now interested in the forward.